I recently purchased a Samsung Captivate. It’s a smartphone that runs on Google’s android operating system. The phone itself is very nifty, and Android is mostly fine, but Google—in the stupidest, most idiotic, boneheaded move ever—decided that you absolutely must have a gmail account to use the phone. In order to install apps from the “Market” you must enter a gmail account. All apps that you download or purchase are tied to this account forever. Moreover, when you purchase an app, it sends your receipt to the gmail account.
This is a problem, because my wife and I use a special e-mail account for all our orders. As she keeps track of our finances in Quicken, she can see online purchases that we have made, but now thanks to the evil incompetence of Google, Market purchases don’t go to that e-mail, and since I’ve already purchased an app, in order to change the e-mail, I would have to reset the phone (lose all data and settings) enter a new e-mail address. Oh, but wait, the previously purchased app? Gone. It’s associated with the despicable gmail account and cannot be retrieved. The internet is rife with stories of people inadvertently putting in their work e-mail first, and now that they’re changing jobs, they want to transfer their apps to a new e-mail. Can’t do it. To quote the evil insurance company from The Rainmaker, Google must be stupid stupid stupid.
But wait you say. You have a Google checkout account with a different e-mail address. Oh yes, there’s another e-mail address associated with the account, but no e-mail gets sent there. Here’s the not helpful at all Help Answer from Google:
Will I receive receipts for my mobile purchases?
If you already use Google Checkout on your computer, then you will continue to receive receipts for your mobile purchases.
You will also be able to view your mobile purchases on the Purchase History page of your account.
If you’ve only ever used Google Checkout from a mobile device and you’d like to receive email receipts for future Google Checkout mobile purchases, visit the Settings page to enter the email address at which you’d like to receive the receipts.
Here’s how:
Click Settings along the bottom of the Buy page.
Enter your email address in the Change Email Address field.
Click Save.
If you’d like to change the email address at which you receive receipts, simply visit the Settings page to enter the new email address.
It’s a complete sham. First of all, do they mean the settings page from the Market in the phone or Google checkout? Guess what? There is no settings page in the market. There is no chance EVER to change the e-mail in the Market app. So perhaps they mean within Google Checkout itself? No, there is no “settings” link in Google Checkout; only a My Account link, which takes you to an overview of all your Google Accounts. (There is an e-mail preferences link in Google checkout, but do not be fooled. All it does is let you “opt in” to merchants’ “special offers.”
The bottom line is that the Captivate is a fine phone marred by Google’s utter incompetence, but even that can be mitigated if you know understand the issue. The moral of the story is be extremely careful with what e-mail you put into the phone before you make any purchases. Forewarned is forearmed.
Here are some basic techniques for loading and unloading a gun. While you practice these, you will want to practice the four laws of gun safety, particularly focusing on 2 and 3: 2) Never let the muzzle cover anything you don’t want to destroy (including your own body parts); 3) keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot.
You’ll also want to obtain some snap caps (fake bullet cartridges) to make you practice session safer.
It’s no secret that most kids today are scared to death of math and calculus. But they’re actually quite easy…as long as you don’t let modern school teachers “teach” you any of that “new math” nonsense. If you want to kick it old school, there’s no better way than to teach yourself calculus with Thompson’s Calculus for the Practical Man.
This book was catapulted to world renown when Nobel laureate, Richard Feynman, recounted using it to teach himself calculus when he was 13. Feynman credited his success in calculus to having taught himself and to some of the unorthodox methods presented in this book. Sometimes, when others couldn’t even approach a problem, a method he had learned here made the problem almost trivial.
If you are at all interested in Calculus, don’t let your first experience be in a classroom setting. You owe it to yourself to teach it to yourself. This book was “old” when Feynman read it, so it’s a bona fide classic today. Rest assured, there is no new math here.
(One word of warning: Calculus is a perishable skill. I passed the AP Calculus BC exam with a 5 and then taught myself multivariate calculus while at the Air Force Academy. Within a year of leaving the Academy, I had already forgotten many of the more advanced techniques, simply from not using them. I do remember the basics, but I would have to put in some serious study to replicate that 5 now.)
Biltong is a South African dried meat, similar to jerky, but it’s dried at room temperature. It is phenomenally tasty. Here is my guide on making biltong (videos to follow).
Obtain London broil. Cut broil into strips about an inch thick. Thinner will dry faster, but it shrinks down as it dries.
Spray or rub meat with a brown vinegar (apple cider is most often recommended)
Sprinkle coarse salt on all sides of meat (optional sprinkle some coriander and black pepper at the same time)
Refrigerate overnight; pour off any water that comes out of the meat
Scrape most of the salt off; add a little more vinegar
Season with 4 parts coriander to 1 part black pepper (I also put about ½ part salt; you can add other spices to taste)
Hang meat in a cool, dry place for 4 – 7 days to taste (thicker takes longer; drier takes longer)
When ready to test, remove meat and cut off a few slices
Store…hahahaha…okay, just eat.
Tips/insights
Traditionally it is done in the dry season under trees. The purpose of the coriander was to keep flies off the meat.
Biltong has been eaten as long as fifteen years later with no deleterious effects.
An air conditioned home is the perfect temp/dryness for making biltong. Alternatively, your garage in January would probably fit the bill.
To hang the meat, I strung a line with knots tied in it (to keep the meat from sliding and touching each other) across a walk in closet. I used large paper clips as hooks for the meat (boil them if you feel like it, since they will be touching parts of the meat that did not receive the vinegar/salt treatment. If you have a closet with wire shelving, the wire shelving is a perfect place to dry it.
Alternatively, you can make a biltong box to dry it in: box with a low watt bulb and a fan with dowels in it to hang the meat from. You can make one or buy one. But this raises the temperature slightly because of the bulb.
Or you can do it in a spare bathroom (the shower bar makes a great rack) but don’t do it if you take showers in the bathrooms as it increases the humidity too much.
Turning on a fan will help to dry the biltong faster.
Some people like their biltong drier and some like it wetter. Generally beef is made a little wetter, while game (like elk, antelope) is made drier. You can gauge the dryness by the redness: pinker/redder = wetter; blacker = drier.
A friend from South Africa says my biltong is pretty spot-on, and some friends who have lived in South Africa say they like my biltong better than what they got in South Africa.
Your wife may think you are crazy for doing this and worry about bugs in the house. Don’t worry; they are not going near your meat.
Fun fact: MS Word’s spell check contains the word biltong.
Here are some other videos on making biltong:
This series is the most informative. Unfortunately, it’s not done yet:
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